.

2001

Element 116 (ununhexium)

Astronomy and space exploration

The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lands in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
The Genesis spacecraft is launched.
NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles (180 km) of Jupiter's moon Io.
June 21 – Total solar eclipse
December 14 – Annular solar eclipse

Biology

January 8 – The first animal from an endangered species produced by cloning, a gaur named Noah, is born at Trans Ova Genetics in Sioux Center, Iowa. He dies within 48 hours of a common dysentery.[1][2]
January – The second animal from an endangered species produced by cloning, a European mouflon lamb, is born in Italy.[3]
February – The publicly funded Human Genome Project, led by Francis Collins and the privately funded Celera effort, led by Craig Venter simultaneously publish their decoding of the human genome (in Nature and Science, respectively).
Craig Venter and Mark Adams complete the genetic map of the laboratory mouse.
Fossil remains of the whale Rodhocetus balochistanensis found in Balochistan Province, Pakistan, by Philip D. Gingerich.[4]

Computer science

December – The C# programming language specification is released.
In quantum computing, the first working 7-qubit NMR computer is demonstrated at IBM's Almaden Research Center, demonstrating Shor's algorithm.
The Walkman Circ is released.

Medicine

July 2 – The world's first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in Robert Tools.
Adult-onset basal ganglia disease caused by FTL mutations is described.